Chuck Hagel Fast Facts

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Updated 11:29 AM ET, Fri February 27, 2015

Photos: Chuck Hagel's military, government career14 photos

Chuck Hagel's military, government career – President Barack Obama is nominating Chuck Hagel, a former U.S. senator from Nebraska, to succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Hagel served in the military during the Vietnam War, leading him later to tell a biographer, "I will do all I can to prevent war." After coming home from Vietnam, Hagel worked briefly as a newscaster, then had a career in business, before entering public service as a Republican senator for 12 years. Here's a look at his military and government career:

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Photos: Chuck Hagel's military, government career14 photos

Chuck Hagel's military, government career – Hagel, pictured in uniform in 1968, volunteered for the U.S. Army, serving a yearlong tour.

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Photos: Chuck Hagel's military, government career14 photos

Chuck Hagel's military, government career – Hagel, right, perched on top of a M113 armored personnel carrier in 1968.

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Photos: Chuck Hagel's military, government career14 photos

Chuck Hagel's military, government career – Hagel was a Republican senator from Nebraska from 1997 to 2009. Here, he testifies before the Senate Commerce Committee during a September 2000 hearing on the marketing of violence to children.

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Photos: Chuck Hagel's military, government career14 photos

Chuck Hagel's military and government career – Hagel discusses the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill with then-Sen. Russ Feingold on NBC's ''Meet the Press'' in March 2001.

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Photos: Chuck Hagel's military, government career14 photos

Chuck Hagel's military, government career – Joe Biden, left, then a U.S. senator from Delaware, walks with Sen. Richard Lugar, second from right, and Hagel, center, at a hotel in Baghdad in June 2003. The congressional delegation was on a tour of the Iraqi capital the year the Iraq War began.

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Photos: Chuck Hagel's military, government career14 photos

Chuck Hagel's military and government career – Hagel chats with Alan Greenspan, then-Federal Reserve chairman, before the start of a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing in April 2005.

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Photos: Chuck Hagel's military, government career14 photos

Chuck Hagel's military, government career – Hagel questions then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her February 2006 testimony on Iran before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

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Photos: Chuck Hagel's military, government career14 photos

Chuck Hagel's military, government career – Hagel comments on a New York Times article during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee's consideration of a resolution on the Iraq War in January 2007. The GOP senator opposed the troop surge in Iraq.

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Photos: Chuck Hagel's military, government career14 photos

Chuck Hagel's military and government career – Hagel holds a September 2007 news conference to reintroduce an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill.

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Photos: Chuck Hagel's military, government career14 photos

Chuck Hagel's military, government career – Gen. David Petraeus, center, flies with then-presidential candidate Barack Obama and Hagel on a July 2008 tour in Baghdad. Hagel joined Obama that year on his tour of parts of the Middle East.

Chuck Hagel's military, government career – Hagel presents former President Bill Clinton with the Atlantic Council's Distinguished International Leadership Award in Washington in April 2010.

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Photos: Chuck Hagel's military, government career14 photos

Chuck Hagel's military, government career – Hagel, from left, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta attend a Memorial Day event at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington in May 2012.

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(CNN)Here's a look at the life of former U.S. Secretary of DefenseChuck Hagel.

Education: Attended Wayne State College, 1964; Attended Kearney State College, 1965; Brown Institute for Radio and Television in Minneapolis, 1966; University of Nebraska at Omaha, B.A. in History, 1971

Military: U.S. Army, 1967-1968, Sergeant

Religion: Roman Catholic

Other Facts:Hagel is the first Vietnam veteran to serve as U.S. defense secretary.

His first job was as at a drive-in restaurant as a car-hop; he was nine years old.

An injury caused him to lose a football scholarship at Wayne State University and transfer to Kearney State College, now known as the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

Served in Vietnam with 9th Infantry Division alongside his brother Tom. They earned five Purple Hearts between the two of them.

He was twice wounded in Vietnam and saved his brother's life. Tom had saved Chuck's life earlier.